The Labour Party says it has no record of any contributions from him but there is more than one way to donate to a party. At a Labour fundraising auction in 2007 Mr Liu bought a book signed by Helen Clark for which, the Herald’s sources say, he paid $15,000. The same year he paid an unknown large sum for a bottle of wine at a fundraiser.

Mr Cunliffe, who became Immigration Minister in 2006, claimed this week that not only had he never advocated for Mr Liu in an immigration application but had never met him. Now that the first claim has proven false, the second takes on a different hue. Sadly, it is all too likely that an MP could write in support of an application for an immigrant he had never met.

But none of this matters as much as the word of a party leader bidding to be Prime Minister in a few months. Mr Cunliffe cannot afford to fall from his high horse more than once. This denial might not force his resignation or ouster but it has done Labour no favours. Next time its leader puts on his scolding face, it will be less convincing. That is the price he has paid.

Who knew that David Cunliffe’s speech to last year’s Labour Party conference was not a new beginning, but the last gasp of the credible phase of his leadership? In itself, his 2003 letter to the Immigration Service was innocuous. Yet only a Jesuit could make the fine distinction that Labour is now trying to make between Cunliffe’s inquiry about how long Donghua Liu’s residency application was taking, and outright “advocacy” for that application to be approved. Not surprisingly, such letters are seen by officials as “hurry up” reminders, and are intended to serve as such. This was advocacy; the same advocacy that Cunliffe had just this week denied ever making. Probably he did so unknowingly. Either way though – fool or knave – it’s not a good look.

The inability of Cunliffe and his staff to adequately research Cunliffe’s track record with Liu is also lamentable – especially given that photos of Labour MPs in the friendly company of Liu had already emerged. Yet earlier this week, Cunliffe had been left to paint himself into a corner of denial, only to be sandbagged by the revelation of the letter’s existence. As yet, we are still reliant on Labour Party researchers to verify whether Labour did or didn’t receive a sizeable donation from Liu. It should be remembered that National Cabinet Minister Maurice Williamson resigned because of his meddling in a Police investigation and not over a donations scandal, per se. Yet Labour had gone on to use the meddling/donation link to Liu as ammunition in its general attack on National and its fat cat donors. All it will take now is evidence of a donation from Liu to Labour to put the noose firmly around Labour’s neck.

Clearly, Cunliffe is now virtually a spent force as Labour leader.

Campbell is not so keen on Labour’s next leader:

There is no visible alternative. Grant Robertson is cut from the same hyper-calculating, micro-positioning cloth. What really ails Labour is that it is a centre left party whose parliamentary caucus is terrified – literally terrified – of its own left wing shadow.

The grubby pit of current New Zealand politics became even more distasteful yesterday when it was revealed Labour leader David Cunliffe appeared guilty of the actions of which he had accused his National Party opponents.

Despite his denials at a hastily-called press conference, a letter signed by Mr Cunliffe, as MP for New Lynn, shows he advocated for businessman Donghua Liu in a letter to immigration officials, contradicting earlier assurances he had not lobbied for the political donor. …

Labour MPs will be discussing the situation intensely, given the party’s ongoing poor showing in the polls and Mr Cunliffe’s personal polling, and now credibility, sinking lower by the week. …

Morally, Mr Cunliffe should resign as soon as possible, but unless someone taps him on the shoulder to take over the poisoned chalice which is the leadership of Labour, he seems likely to stay on and ride out the controversy until the September 20 election.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2014 at 7:00 am and is filed under NZ Politics.
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National is being blamed, the media are being blamed (some of them did over-react) and ‘rigged polls’ are being blamed.

Labour have only themselves to blame for their current dire predicament.

It’s hard to see Cunliffe turning around the significant and entrenched perceptions of him. His (and Labour’s) lack of competence on an ongoing basis obviously don’t help either, but here’s also no sign of that changing.

But dumping Cunliffe won’t help this close to the election. There’s no obvious alternative.

Grant Robertson has obviously had leadership ambitions but he would be a huge risk. He has been heavily involved in the attacks on National over the last few months, not a good background for a supposed leader.

And his media performances yesterday suggest he has little different to offer, he resorted to the same old recycled campaign platitudes.

Labour look stuffed for this year. They have already embarked on a campaign of going it alone. There seems no chance of a combined left wing campaign.

We may see more self interest from the other parties. Greens and Internet-MANA may decide to just go for what they can get for themselves whether it be electorate or party votes.

Actually it’s amazing how durable the Labour vote is. I have several contemporaries who, even now, make no apologies for voting Red. When I ask them why, they never have any valid reason apart from ‘to get National out’ or something about the GCSB.

IMP will go hard out to get what they can, but may run into trouble if Kelvin Davis really wants to stay in parliament and goes hard in Te Tai Tokerau. I don’t think the Greens have the vision or the ideological flexability at the top to make the move towards the centre that would see them oust Labour as the dominant opposition party.

Some Labour supporters of my passing acquaintance see their loyalty to that flawed concept – (Socialism I mean) – in quasi-religious terms and will never – (that’s NEVER) – waver in their misguided and illogical support of it.

Does “Tojo” think he is in a unique position regarding the leaking of documents. He is whinging about JK getting information from sources that he has no access to. Well, he maybe a union clone, but not everyone in media or public service is a leeching unionist and some do have minds of their own. Suck it up “Tojo”, you are heading where you belong, to the gutter with your left-wing deviant thugs.

But John Key has a malign ‘agenda’ for New Zealand that will ruin the country, remember?

Judith was telling us about it last night.

Even though all he’s done for the last six years is slightly curtail Labour’s spending track, apparently it’s possible to tell just by looking at him that he’s up to no good and is plotting something truly hideous.

Maybe it’s that Jew nose of his? Everyone knows what international Jewry is like…

The parliamentary wing in Labour have an obligation to it’s supporters. If they choose to roll Cunliffe, it must be because they see it as the best way going forward to win the election, or at least, minimise the damage. However, in doing so, they risk alienating the voter base that elected Cunliffe.

They also have the very real problem that no viable successor exists. I do not, for one minute, rate Grant Robertson as PM material, and his sexual orientation has noting to do with it. It is because he is so disconnected from those he seeks to represent. He wears the Labour badge, but only from an academic perspective.

Jones is gone. They can’t go back to Shearer. Goff and King are too tainted. Mallard and Little are too polarising. The party is in need of a uniting influence which, quite frankly, they do not have. Chris Trotter said that the next Labour PM is not yet in Parliament. I think he’s right.

Roy Morgan now has Labour and Greens up with the Nats under 50%. Probably shows that the time distinction (11 years) since the letter was written may be having an impact – additionally, and although it wouldn’t be a nice look, the weight of the Banks situation and others may have tempered the scales of opinion or simply the electorate don’t care – particularly because ‘Liu’ appears bad news for who ever might engage with him. Which ever is the case, it’s still tight. Cunliffe, as predicted won’t be going anywhere and there is a lot more water to go under the bridge. At this point the Nats should be careful in acting the way JK said Labour was toward Collins – the incumbent being circumspect rather than involved in ‘domestics.’

What tasty titbits are the nasty National party going to leak today… Perhaps some information via an OIA request that Labour were too lazy to check for themselves…. Nasty nasty nasty …. Looking up information via official channels and using it against liars. Unthinkable politics.

You are right Harriet. It’s all an invitation toward corruption, or at least the look of it. Parliament should be unified on cleaning it up because it’s Parliament’s credibility that suffers.

I’ve been interested in the lack of outrage to Cunliffe apparently telling his colleagues that they’d be ‘scabs’ if they went against him. Not much truck for that kind of talk these days, but on reflection it draws a line and might wake up some Labour supporters or potential voters that the ‘brand’ is not all about ‘lovely’ lads and rainbows.

I tend to agree that MPs should stay out of immigration matters but traditionally MPs have been expected to help people in their dealings with government. There need to be clear rules.

Suppose I have given a large donation to a political party and then go to the office of an MP of that party. Can they help me if I am having difficulty getting resource consent to remove a tree? What about if my mother has been on the waiting list for a hip operation for a long time? You have to draw the line somewhere and it isn’t obvious where that is.

The situation at the moment seems to be that an MP who helps anyone either before or after their party receives a donation from that person, is at serious risk of damaging accusations of corruption whether they actually did anything wrong or not.

The really scary thing is that Cunliffe could limp through to Sept 20, (because no one wants the job) and end up leading a Labour, Green, NZF, Maori, Mana/Internat coalition of losers.
This is still a possible senario and centre NZ needs to know that a vote for Labour is a vote for Krim Dotcom’s currupt influence reaching right into the executive.

Peter Dunne blogged yesterday that immigration is a major part of electorate business for him, and he explains how he deals with it.

Amidst all the drama surrounding David Cunliffe’s recollections or not of his dealing with Donghua Liu, it is worth remembering that one of the most important roles an electorate Member of Parliament has is to advocate on behalf of constituents when they have an issue with the government or one of its agencies. Such advocacy often leads to the mounting of the strongest of cases on behalf of the constituent one feels able to, even if there are times when one’s personal sympathies for the case, or confidence about its outcome are not great. The point is that as that person’s representative one is obliged to ensure their case is at least fairly, properly, and fully considered before a decision is reached upon it.

Matters relating to immigration are amongst the most sensitive of cases MPs deal with for understandable reasons. In my own case, as an electorate MP of nearly 30 years standing, immigration matters have consistently accounted for about two-thirds of the individual cases I have handled. In that time, I have seen many harrowing situations, and written probably thousands of support letters to successive Ministers of Immigration. I have won cases I expected to lose, and lost cases I had expected to win.

However, I have always followed two firm rules for immigration – and actually all constituency – cases, aside from the obvious point of keeping clear and full records. Any letters of advocacy I write on behalf of a constituent have been drafted personally by me, rather than a member of my staff, as I am more likely to remember something I have written myself, rather than just affixed a signature to. Second and more important, I have never accepted a donation or gift in return for pursuing an immigration case. Where there have been occasions – usually after the event – where someone offered to make a donation, I have always referred them directly to the Party Treasurer. So I actually never know whether any of these offers have ever been followed up, which is as it should be.

Nigel Kearney (802 comments) says:
June 20th, 2014 at 8:16 am
The situation at the moment seems to be that an MP who helps anyone either before or after their party receives a donation from that person, is at serious risk of damaging accusations of corruption whether they actually did anything wrong or not.

Heaven forbid they should have to think about their actions, and what they say, and consider the consequences of taking money. The money is being given to them to garner favour – no-one bar nutcases think that giving money to a political party is anything akin to giving to a charity.

I agree with the posters here saying that it is too late & too risky for a leadership change prior to the election. And with current polling for Labour, none of the contenders for the job will really want the job this side of the election either. Barring major scandal from the government they look to be cruising towards a third term in government, it will be closer than the last poll suggests but that will just make it more interesting to watch.

When Geoffrey Palmer got discarded in favour of Mike Moore 3 months before the election it led to a landslide victory for the incoming Bolger government. Voters do not look kindly on bloody leadership changes, especially close to an election.

My prediction: in the leadup to the election there will be a quiet chat in a windowless room with Cunliffe- that when he concedes defeat on election day he will also give a graceful speech about stepping down from leadership of the labour party (like Helen Clark did) thus avoiding a Caesar style public stabbing – this is what would honestly be best for the party and give them a chance to heal, pick a new leader through transparent process and time to rebuild before the next election.

‘It isn’t good news – Labour is down as well – but it’s nowhere near the horror story in the Stuff.co.nz/Ipsos poll on Thursday which put the party on 23.2 per cent and National soaring to 56.5 per cent.

The poll coincided with the strife Mr Cunliffe is in over his intervention in Donghua Liu’s residence application, and he had a torrid 24 hours.’

I think it’s about more than just getting rid of Cunliffe, I think it’s more about getting rid of the memeber and union control over Labour. It’s bigger than just the leader. The fallout will be huge, and Labour will never be the same again. There will probably be 2 Labour parties soon after the election. One hard left workers rights based, the other more central leaning with a huge focus on social issues. The chardonnay socialist set if you will.

There’s no way it’s a National hit, the numbers and reasons don’t make sense for them.

“…..The situation at the moment seems to be that an MP who helps anyone either before or after their party receives a donation from that person, is at serious risk of damaging accusations of corruption whether they actually did anything wrong or not…..”

It is no longer at arms length when it is a cultural understanding between the parties.

The culture of the immigrant is known to return favours. So the MP will always look guilty as they then have a vested interest.

Define ‘knew’ and define ‘advocate’? I think this is a ‘beat up’. It also concerns me that the NZ Prime Minister John Key is making references to ‘rumours’. I do hope that he is not abusing his powers as head of the GCSB to get and use information about political rivals for personal and political gain? Mind you – ETHICS and ‘Wall Street banker’ are hardly synonymous. Has this former currency trader who helped to set up the disastrous derivatives market ‘changed his spots’? In my considered opinion – I doubt it. Remember John Keys ‘insider trading’ (as it were) over TranzRail? Penny Bright

It is no longer at arms length when it is a cultural understanding between the parties. The culture of the immigrant is known to return favours. So the MP will always look guilty as they then have a vested interest.

If an MP helps a chinese person, whether it is an immigration related matter or not, there may be a favour returned later for cultural reasons. So what you are basically saying is that an MP helping members of the public is corrupt if they are chinese but perfectly ok otherwise. Sorry, but I have a problem with that.

As Labour have experienced, muck throwing by them has come back to haunt them, but what goes around comes around, and the muck is now being thrown by national – for every action there is a reaction, and its not hard to predict who is next in line. The trick will all be in the timing – who gets to be the muck thrower the week before the election!

Anyone who has had business dealings with Chinese will tell you that its par for the course for some token of gratitude to be pressed on the provide of a service or favour as a matter of course. Its the Chinese way!! (Sortof like Koha a bit nearer home)

That politicians are not aware of this, and fail to take measures to sidestep or frustrate these – for a polly – dangerous tokens of gratitude for just doing their job defies belief.

Admittedly its a tricky one, I know from experience, – how to remain whiter than white and squeaky clean without appearing to the grateful donor to be churlish in refusing a token of gratitude tendered in good faith.

That line isn’t going to work – it isn’t a smear campaign when everybody agrees the allegation is true.

Nobody is disputing that Cunliffe denied having heard of Liu. Nobody is disputing that in 2003 Cunliffe wrote a letter inquiring about his immigration process. Even if National did give the Herald a tip-off about the letter (which wouldn’t surprise me, although so far there is no evidence they did) that doesn’t change these facts. Cunliffe is still guilty of either deceit and/or incompetence, and whether it was National or the Herald that uncovered it makes no difference.

Ah Judith! I was just going to enquire where you were…Any further information on Key’s “agenda”?? Last night’s answer was more of the Clayton’s variety…and I know you are old enough to know what that expression means…

I’ll give you a wee hint…Rodney used to say something like “The problem with the Nats’ plan for the country is they don’t have one.”

What really ails Labour is that it is a centre left party whose parliamentary caucus is terrified – literally terrified – of its own left wing shadow.

In other words Cunliffe, despite his own failures, is merely a symptom. The reporter being Gordon Campbell the implication is that more Leftism would not be a bad thing, even for a “centre left” party.

The problem is the left wing’s own success to date. In terms of extending the welfare state how much further can they go without pushing into areas that most people think are silly? More money for what we have? It starts to look like a black hole, even in health or education.

Then there are the emotive wedge issues around race and sexuality. But what’s left to be done aside from trying to further enforce the fight against “heteronormativity” or some other academic crap. Maori issues so the whole “racism” thing can be tub thumped? That seems like a dead end, especially since National cannot be smeared on those issues as it might have been forty years ago. Transgender problems don’t look like moving many voters.

The re-nationalisation of all that was lost in the 1980’s, the revenge of Michael Joseph Savage? But there’s no traction for that, despite all the left wing whining. Those battles were fought and lost thirty years ago and for every Air New Zealand (which was only enabled by an crisis) there’s a SolidEnergy and Rail NZ that people can see losing money and value: not assets but liabilities.

About all I can see are environmental issues, possibly including animal welfare as the good/evil wedge needed. But the Greens will always be more pure and there’s a big question mark over the weight of votes, especially considering that people are happy to bemoan things like AGW at dinner parties but not pay the costs demanded by any realistic emission restrictions of the type the left love – more regulation, more government spending and more taxes.

Danyl Mclauchlan’s comment on this the other day was accurate I think:

Labour has seemed like a broken, dying party for almost as long as I’ve been interested in politics, so the fluctuating identity of the leader just doesn’t seem that important.

What would probably be useful are a clearer set of guidelines on just what assistance an MP can give on immigration matters? Also, more comprehensive and transparent ‘rules’ regarding donations to MPs and political parties? While we’re at it – how about an ENFORCEABLE ‘Code of Conduct’ for NZ MPs? Given that they make the rules for everyone else? errr …. wouldn’t you think that NZ would already have such laws in place – given that we’re ‘perceived’ to be the least corrupt country in the world? Although we have yet to ratify the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) – thanks to the (in my considered opinion) CORRUPT and INCOMPETENT NZ Minister of Justice – Judith Collins. Penny Bright

The issue here is globalisation which is a process of transactions between interests across states which aren’t necessarily in the interests of the members of that state. Going back in NZ’s European History (which Professor Jock Philips described as “unremarkable” – Sundays with Wallace) the liberals made all efforts to break up large holdings so the “small man” could be settled on the land. Under globalisation the “small man” gets some sort of economic benefit because the cashed up farmer (it is assumed) starts a furniture factory at Dunsandel (or similar). He never sets off on a world trip, settling down at Noosa.
The “small man” is cut out of politics because we now have an elitist culture, so on The Panel yesterday, we hear David Slack extol the need for a bigger population (“another 2 cities the size of Wellington”) and an expert to “give us a positive opinion” (on immigration). Everyone agreed it was a good thing.
Opinion pollsters tell us what we think so the Mercer survey for high paid employees of multinationals tells Aucklanders that they live in one of the best cities. Also you have an imbalance of views in academia. Professor Spoonley has written more books on immigration and racism than Sir Walter Scotts has written novels, but they are slanted: we know what happened to Dr Greg Clydesdale.
NZ First has stood against globalisation but they lack sophistication. The pinnacle so far in politics has been David Parker v Bill English where he referred to Treasury and Reserve Bank papers, but Labour has David Slack, Russel Brown LPrent types so they can only extol mush.
The big issues are getting mangled in the party political system.

So far the Labour defence seems to be:
1. David Cunliffe has routinely signed thousands of letters without reading them first. (What?! And this guy wants to be PM?)

2. Cunliffe’s office couldn’t find a copy of any Liu correspondence – Cunliffe doesn’t keep files back to 2003. (So he can’t run a properly organised office, and this fool wants to be PM?!)

2. The letter on behalf of Liu was not advocacy. (OK – so what was the letter on behalf of Liu for then?)

3. It is all National’s fault for finding documents under the Official Information Act. (So Labour are too incompetent to use the Official Information Act themselves – pathetic. Labour have all these researchers and MPs, but they can’t do the most basic political research – and they want to form the next government?).

Whatever David ….. The FACTS are that a few of us – Graham McCready in particular managed to get John Banks (FINALLY) held accountable for electoral fraud. However – neither Don Brash nor John Banks (both former Leaders of YOUR ACT Party – purporting to support ‘personal responsibility’ we’re ever held accountable as former fellow Directors of Huljich Wealth Management (NZ) Ltd for signing registered prospectuses which contained misleading information. Sorry David – but in my considered opinion – you are just FULL of it. (Meant of course in a caring way Kind regards Penny Bright

Yes it is. It’s also a tribal thing. Labour is their tribe, and they cannot consider that they might be supporting the wrong thing. Hence the lefty rhetoric about Key. He hasn’t changed bugger all of what Helen left, but, he isn’t their tribe, so he is the devil incarnate.

Quite funny seeing the standard crowd trying to blame National for digging up the dirt on Cunliffe when it is so transparently obvious that it was an inside Job (Not just delusional, but stupid as well it seems) – the timing of the release tells the story.

National would have benefited most if this was released a couple of weeks before the election. Labour caucus members would benefit most from a release just before the start of the 90day window to boot Cunliffe.

The trouble is that all Goneliffe has to do is put up a smokescreen (as he is doing) and the Labour voters will fall into line.
This will work for this particular revelation but at some stage when the other bits come to light even those diehards will have trouble
explaining it all away.
I can imagine the ‘War Room’ running out of ‘National are not nice’ and ‘We’re behind Das Leader’ bumper stickers

I have some advice for National. If you are going to orchestrate a smear against your opponent, but hope to fade into the background while the smear unfolds, it really pays to have your cover-up stories straight. Did you ever hear about Labour’s role in forcing [redacted] of the [redacted] party to resign back in [redacted]? No, I bet you didn’t.

When you screw up and start contradicting each other’s stories, you look like a pack of low-rent numpties. And it reveals your tactics for all to see, which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place.

It is bad enough that we had the Deputy Prime Minister intoning shock and surprise, just as the Prime Minister is gloating that he’s known about the letter for weeks. But yesterday we saw the added spectacle of Michael Woodhouse changing his mind within hours about when he first saw the letter, and what he did with it.

And, with that Inspector-Clouseau style caper going on in the background, John Key wants to climb onto the Security Council! Good luck with that. If they can’t pull off a decent smear when they’re in charge of all the information domestically, imagine how clumsy and counterproductive they would be when negotiating with the P5.

I will actually be very sad to see Cunliffe go…much better that he stays, loses badly, and then they all go to war with themselves trying to decide if the population is ready for Grant and his husband … and when they decide the answer is NO…tear themselves apart.

Ross 001/69: Are you effing serious man?? Are you so delusional that you cannot see that: 1) Key is the most popular PM since Savage; and 2) Cunliffe has almost no support within his own caucus; and 3) he has well and truly hoisted himself on his one petard; and 4) Labour’s support was abysmal BEFORE this weeks events??

If you really can’t see all of that you are either very very stupid or so indoctrinated as to be beyond belief…

I hear that Sweet Cheeks Robertson is getting some sideways looks from Cunners mates (I think he has about 4) about his lack of assistance / warning re the “letter”.. In fact he appears to have done what Cunners did to Goff during the one on ones with JK, pushed him under a bus.